There's A First Time For Everything
by Hel-Lokisdotter
Summary: Remus was just trying to do his homework in peace. Now he's being attacked by drunken Marauders with the aim of making him equally drunk. What did he ever do to deserve this? Marauder's Era, one-shot, no pairing. Pure, unadulterated crack.


**Disclaimer: **None of the characters or places in this piece belong to me. They are all the property of JK Rowling.

**A/N: **This is crack. Pure, unadulterated crack.  
Crack is not what I usually write. Concrit is even more loved than usual.

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"Where did you even _get_ that from?" Remus asked, laying down his quill and glancing sceptically at the heap of drinks piled on the table. He was slouched in one of the chairs in the Gryffindor common room, an unrolled piece of parchment on his lap; he had been trying all evening, but so far he had written all of four lines, in neat, spidery handwriting.

"Oh, we stole it from an orphanage and then burnt the nearby old people's home down," Sirius replied with a wicked grin.

"You should have heard the starving urchins crying," addedd the empty air beside him, and then James' laughing face popped out from under his invisibility cloak. "Music to our evil little ears."

"You should have invited me along," Peter said, mock-sulkily, from the sofa opposite. "You know how I love acts of wanton evil."

"You? Evil? Merlin's ghost, Peter, if you're evil then Sevvikins is an angel!"

"Be the greasiest angel _I_ ever saw," Sirius put in, grinning even wider. Clearing his throat, as though to announce something, he leapt onto the nearest table, put his hands together in a gesture of prayer, and made a wonderfully holy face. "Peace on earth, and goodwill to all men, except those carrying shampoo and assorted hair products!"

Remus hid a smile, leaning forwards to turn the page of his textbook, which lay on the arm of the chair next to him, and picking up his quill again. "Sirius Black, anyone who uses as many hair products as you is probably not a man to start with. I bet there's less hairspray in the whole of the girl's dormitories. Now piss off, you big girl's blouse. I've got to hand this in to Slughorn tomorrow. And so do you, by the way, so…"

He was cut off abruptly as a cushion hit him in the face, sending ink skittering over his skin and clumping stickily in his hair.

"Sirius!"

"What?" The black-haired boy spread his hands, giving him a thoroughly unconvincing look of total innocence.

Remus didn't bother answering; he just picked the cushion up and hurled it back, wiping at his face with the sleeve of his robe and succeeding only in smearing the ink worse. "One of these days," he said threateningly, "I am going to borrow someone's razor, and then you'll wake up the next morning with no hair at all."

Sirius, who had caught the cushion easily, now covered his head with it, letting out a high-pitched scream and diving behind one of the chairs. "You'll never take me alive!"

"Well, if all else fails, he can slit your throat first," Peter said with a slightly worrying little grin.

"Sounds like a Python sketch," Remus commented. "Mind you, your whole lives seem to be like Python sketches. You should get those bottles… cans… various apparatus of the demon drink upstairs. You'll be dead meat if someone finds you out."

"Python sketch?" James asked curiously, at precisely the same time as Sirius popped his head up from behind the chair and said, "Remus, you're supposed to be thirteen. When you start talking like that, I think you've been taken over by the ghost of a hundred-year-old man. A _prudish_ hundred-year-old man."

"Razor, Sirius," Remus said, raising his eyebrows. Sirius yelped and ducked under the table, teeth chattering theatrically. Rolling his eyes, the brown-haired boy picked up his quill again, examining the tip for any damage. "The Pythons are Muggle, James. Muggle humour. You wouldn't get it."

"I bet we would if we watched it!" Peter said with a grin, reaching over to the table and grabbing a bottle of vodka. Sirius' hand flashed out from under the table immediately, wrestling it out of the youngest boy's grip.

Remus shook his head tiredly, pinching the bridge of his nose. "Probably. Watch it on telly, when you're somewhere where tellies work. It's good. Sirius, James, Peter… seriously. I'm not joking. Go and get plastered somewhere else."

James pouted, picking up a bottle of bourbon. "You're no fun, that's your problem. Shandy?"

"_Shandy_?" Sirius sounded incredulous. Rolling himself out from under the table, he tackled James and wrestled the can of shandy free, waving the perilously tilted – and now half-empty – bottle of vodka in his other hand. "You dare defile my precious alcohol with _shandy_?"

"Actually, you put that in," James replied, unconcerned.

Sirius regarded the can for a moment, his eyes mournful and puppyish. "_Shandy_…" he repeated, disbelievingly. "Ah, well. Waste not, want not!" Opening it in one swift motion, he swallowed the whole thing without pausing for breath, then burped massively. Peter and James burst out laughing. Even Remus smiled a little, although he was still pretty frustrated.

The words weren't coming, dammit. He wasn't going to get it finished… stupid Slughorn. The ink from his quill was starting to seep into the parchment, making a big black blot on his nice neat work, and maybe he could have been an inch further down the page if they'd just _shut up_!

"Ooh, firewhiskey!" Peter grabbed another bottle, coming perilously close to knocking over Sirius' abandoned vodka. Remus dived for it, just in time to stop it upending into his ink bottle.

"Peter!"

"Remus!"

"Sirius!"

"James!"

"Um…" Peter blinked. "Sirius!"

Sirius pouted, folding his arms. "Why are you all shouting at me?"

"Ooh! I haven't yet!" James cut in, knocking back a mouthful of schnapps.

"James!"

"Remus!"

"Peter!"

"Sirius! There, I got one in! _Now _I feel like part of the party!"

"There is no party!" Remus glared. "This is a school! We're thirteen! If they find us doing this, we'll be in detention for the rest of our natural lives! And _I_ haven't even done anything!"

Sirius looked thoughtful. That rather worried Remus; Sirius looking thoughtful was very rarely a good sign.

"That's a point, actually," he said in tones of deep contemplation, after a moment. "You _haven't _done anything. How boring of you." He exchanged glances with James, smirking. "I think we need to introduce our dear little friend to the wonderful world of living it up." He ruffled Remus' hair until the other boy stabbed his hand with the quill.

"Couldn't agree more," James said with a bright nod, rolling up his sleeves. "Shall we start easy, with some champagne?"

"Hm. I think perhaps not. We'll never get him plastered on _champagne_. Grab the vodka, Potter, we're going to corrupt some innocent young minds."

"No, you're not," Remus disagreed firmly, snapping his textbook shut and recorking his ink bottle. "I'm going to bed. Essay or no essay." Folding his parchment inside the book and wiping his quill clean on his robes, he levered himself upright and started hurriedly towards the stairs to the boy's dormitories.

"Oh no you don't!" Sirius shouted after him. "Peter, get him! James, get a fuller bottle!" Snatching the bottle out of James' hands, he leapt onto the arm of the chair, swaying slightly, and struck a heroic pose. "A fuller bottle, I say! For this will be the day… aye, this will be the day, by Merlin's ghost, that a boy becomes a man!"

"Aye-aye, _sir_!" James said with a quick salute, grabbing another bottle of vodka. "Why're you in charge, though?"

"My supreme good looks and all-around talent, General Potter, will once again win us our victory! Lieutenant Pettigrew, get him, I say!"

"Sirius." Remus raised his eyebrows. "Firstly, he's been blocking the stairs for the last five minutes. Secondly, I'm _not_ going to get drunk, all right? And thirdly, if James is general, what does that make you?"

Sirius scratched his head. "Super-uber-general with bells on?"

"Possibly." Remus put his head on one side. "I don't think that's an actual military ranking. Possibly with the Women's Corps, though, oh ye of many hair-care produ..."

"Geronimo-o-o-o-o!" James cut in, launching himself across the common room at Remus and tackling him to the ground. "Peter, grab his arms!" As he said it, he wrestled himself into a position where he was straddling Remus' chest, raising the vodka over his head with a wild grin. "Open your mouth, Remus, and shut your eyes, and I will give you a _big_ surprise!"

"Wow, James," Sirius said from behind him, swigging down half the remaining vodka in one mouthful, "I didn't know you swung that way. Won't Lily be _disappointed_?"

"Sirius Black, you bloody… That's it, I'm staging a military coup!" Jumping off Remus' chest – the latter took a deep, gasping breath – James shoved the bottle of vodka to one side, diving at Sirius.

"You're not doing much to prove me wrong, are you, Jimmy?" Sirius raised one eyebrow, looking up at James' face, which was only an inch or so away from his.

James opened his mouth to answer, but before he could reply, Peter shouted, "He's getting away!"

"Remus Lupin! Get back here!" Shoving James off him, Sirius dived forwards and up the stairs. "You _will_ be made a man of! I may have failed with Jimmy over there, but I will make a man out of you! _Get back here_!" Lunging forwards, he grabbed Remus' ankle and pulled. The pair of them rolled over and over, bouncing back down the stairs.

"Owowowowowow!" Sirius whined immediately. "I think I _sprained_ something!"

"Well, let that be a lesson," Remus said, standing up and dusting himself off. "I'm going to bed. Right after I put something on these bruises and re-solidify my bones." He turned back towards the steps, then groaned as Peter stepped neatly into his way, holding out a bottle of vodka and with a smirk plastered across his face.

"If I drink that, will you let me go to bed?" Remus asked resignedly, rubbing a cut on his forehead.

Peter nodded, his smirk growing, if possible, even wider. Back at the table still stacked high with alcohol, James and Sirius nodded with equal smugness.

"Oh, Merlin… fine. Fine, I'll drink your sodding vodka." Sighing, Remus held out a hand.

You could almost hear the smirks.

Lifting the bottle to his lips, he screwed up his face in anticipation of the taste. The minute he swallowed, though, the whole common room echoed with the laughter of the other three.

"All of it!" Glancing at James, Sirius smirked over at Remus again as he swigged down the first half of the bottle, then wiped his mouth.

"That's foul," he commented, raising the bottle back up to his mouth. And then, a moment later, when the bottle was empty and he felt a surprisingly pleasant light-headedness start to settle on him, "Is there any more?"

Peter cheered, then stopped suddenly when he realised nobody else was. James and Sirius, meanwhile, seemed somehow to have come to an unspoken agreement, because they were moving forwards in perfect unison. In flat, monotone voices, they repeated over and over again, "One of us... One of us..."

Remus took one look at them, shuffling towards him like zombies and occasionally stopping to bow to him, and burst out laughing.

***

"Firewhiskey. Firewhiskey's good," Peter said contentedly, as they flopped back in their chairs an hour or so later, surrounded by empty bottles and cans.

"Nah. Vodka. Vodka all the way." James half-rose, burping, and raised a wavering finger.

"Bloody _shandy_!" Sirius' voice was aggrieved.

"I think… I think…" Remus put a hand to his head, trying to concentrate. "I think… I don't know what I think."

"No-one cares, Lupes," James told him. "You're skunk as a drunk. That's what matters."

"Yeah…" Remus slumped back into his chair, stretching for another bottle of Firewhiskey. Something told him that 'skunk as a drunk' wasn't quite right, but it sounded good enough to him.

"Yeah…" Peter repeated, sighing happily. "Skunk as bleedin' drunks."

"Q'dditch," James said dreamily.

"Quidditch?"

"Should… should go. We'll miss Q'dditch."

"Lupes, 'time is it?"

Remus shrugged. What did it matter? They were skunk as drunks, either way.

As he drifted off into semi-sleep, his face black-streaked with dried ink, he didn't even register the roar of crowds coming up the hallway towards the Gryffindor common room.


End file.
